Raineh Daze

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

punch lesbian

• Name: Tachibana Hibiki
• Gender: Female
• Appearance:
  
  Untransformed

  
  
  
  Transformed

  
• Personality: Hibiki is, in the normal course of things, a friendly, hyperactive goof. She's unrelentingly cheerful, prefers to try and avoid conflict through talking, and will generally believe the best of anyone until given a reason to believe otherwise. This is even a pretty accurate assessment of her underlying mood most of the time.
  It's just that when something is getting her down, or bothering her, then she's still going to act exactly the same, as well as continuing to throw herself into harms' way for the sake of everyone else. Despite all she's been through, it isn't really something that's gone away, nor has the lingering survivor's guilt.
  She's also an idiot. While she somehow has moments of tactical brilliance, when it comes to studying or paying attention… well, she wasn't the worst in S.O.N.G. (barely), but it's close. It also took her much, much too long to wise up to her own feelings regarding Miku – even though everyone could see it. Where Miku is concerned, she's actually shockingly selfish given the rest of her demeanour.
  Likes food. A lot.
• Brief History: At age 13, Hibiki attended a Zwei Wing concert. The last Zwei Wing concert. When she was there, Noise attacked, and one of the singers gave her life to protect Hibiki's… even though she didn't get away unscathed, getting a shard of an ancient relic lodged in her chest and uncomfortably near her heart.
  You would think this is enough punishment, but her survival when so many else didn't – including her father's boss's daughter – and the generous payout she received over the resultant medical troubles lead to considerable ostracism and bullying, while her father gradually became an abusive alcoholic before leaving entirely. It was not, on the whole, a particularly good time, and it's no wonder that she ended up going to a boarding school along with her best (and basically only) friend.
  And that's when the events of Symphogear itself happened. In summary, an awful lot of things, but they involve the moon being horribly damaged, diving into a giant laser, punching through K2, punching an alchemical mecha lion, turning into a coccoon, punching through the devil, going to the moon, and deicide.
  Said god then basically gave her and Miku her blessing. And they finally got around to confessing, because Hibiki is stupid and Miku was too reluctant.
• Universe of Origin: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
• Equipment: The only equipment that Hibiki has is the fragment of Gungnir that was turned into a Symphogear. It's a singing-powered magical girl transformation. Also, it provides its own backing track. Get used to ALL LOVES BLAZING.
  It's a small necklace when not in use.
• Abilities: Untransformed, Hibiki has… martial arts. Not any particular style of martial arts, as it's all derived from watching movies with her teacher, but she knows it all the same and has the physical conditioning to use it – much more effectively than one would imagine from a girl of her build, but still nowhere near as impressive as said teacher, and (given her transformation) it's all-in on strikes.
  Transformed, she's stronger, faster, and tougher. All fairly standard. She also has a transforming set of armour that mostly serves to enhance her ability to hit things (or get about) by rockets or just getting much, much bigger. Those are probably overkill for some things, given she an already kick through concrete just with the transformation alone.
  While there are some effects that aren't relevant, Gungnir is also a god-killing spear, and as a result Hibiki is entirely capable of inflicting lethal damage to the divine. Most notably, this negates how divine power would be used to regenerate within her world – essentially pulling from alternate undamaged realities – but it doesn't seem to stop anything else from straight healing or regrowing when damaged.
  While it has one still-remaining powered up mode, X-Drive takes an enormous amount of phonic gain (song powered, remember?) and it, and its flight abilities, are unlikely to make an appearance. It also has the superb song… which is basically one very short-lived and massive power boost at the cost of enormous backlash on herself. Even with Hibiki's compatibility, it's a bad choice without other Symphogear users to share the burden.
• Other: 17, taken just after the end of XV.

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Interest Check)

[insert preferred symphogear tagline here]

anyhow, yeah, interested

The Metian Institute: Project Gungnir

Cellica climbed up the rope without effort, giving the blue mist a curious look. "If we clear it, would we not have a better idea of its source and whether that can be plugged?"

It seemed to be a rather banal aerosol for the time being; if it couldn't permeate a solid barrier then they ought to be able to clear a path until they found the original cause of the mist and shut it down – or opened another path through. That, of course, relied on the assumption that it wasn't incredibly corrosive… but in that case, what was protecting the decaying infrastructure of the ruins? Simply blocking it should suffice for their purposes.

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

Quille

It took a moment before Quille quite grasped the meaning of the offered hand, shaking it tentatively before it was withdrawn. Interesting to meet a human woman with matching hair, though; that was quite the unusual colouration, wasn't it? Hmm… she needed to inspect more humans to see.

"I have never seen a griffin before. Those fly, yes?" the hunter asked, deep in thought. That made her usual tactics a lot more… precarious; the sky didn't really have a limit and she was rather invested in stabbing. Oh, and it was wanted alive, for an extra round of complications. "My speciality lies in killing beasts, not capturing them. It would be an… interesting challenge."

"Could we just… lightly maim it? Would someone be able to heal that?"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina

"C-Can't we just ignore them and k-k-keep going?" Miina wondered, even though it was a bit late with Rudolf already leaping to get involved, "They can't be th-that important."

Or maybe they were? Nobility had too many names and it just made everything needlessly complicated. Besides, their importance when you didn't need something that they had decided was theirs – or only listened to them, like an army, she supposed – was entirely overstated; the worst that could happen if you ignored them was that they would get annoying. Maybe try to arrest you, but that was easy to provoke even without dealing with nobles.

It was certainly no reason to waste their time on the road getting involved in an argument.

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

Quille

Trailing along behind the lamia was an easy way to get to the board, but that brought about a new problem – there were still plenty of missions up and down the scale (although it now seemed that people were taking a lot of them away to look at… was this really the best system for organising listings?), but she had no idea where her new associate fell. It would be a bit awkward if she turned out to be a gold rank; a lifetime of hunting with no other practical experience wasn't enough to handle that sort of danger.

"So… how difficult are we looking?" the elf asked after a moment, trying to catch a glimpse of Hyseleia's eyes. Hm… she wasn't sure if they were all of a similar difficulty or not, but the region was distinctly lacking in 'please kill this thing', which was a shame. It would have been nice to get started with a familiar task, even if it turned out to be on the easy side.

The Metian Institute: Project Gungnir

Cellica took the comms device and gave it a cursory inspection before wiggling it into place, glad that at least it only really needed to cling to the base of her ears. She didn't want to imagine how annoying it would be to have some sort of earpiece that was tickling away all the time it was in use.

Now, as for who should go where…

"I think it would be for the best if Miss Kynbrough and myself went through the mana-filled corridor. She is, after all, a specialist and I have no sensitive equipment," the elf began, glossing over the other fact that her advantages lay in burst speed and strength if needed, not rockfalls, "While Miss Brunnenhild's equipment would probably be best served going through the other tunnel with Mister Meynolt, as another backup in case anything should happen."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina

"S-South is fine," the red mage said, offering no resistance or additions to the travel plans. Aside from the occasional healing, and practising her ability to fall from high places, the redhead had found herself wandering Brightlam with nothing to do but try to pick up on a trail that was rapidly cooling. And yet, as always, she managed to find a vague hint… really, she just needed to find anyone complaining about unfaithfulness or theft, it generally lead in the right direction.

But it seemed that the Kirins' overall plans and hers remained in alignment, and she had no problems with making a stopover to ransack a family library.

… well, not ransack. She'd be gentle. Probably not even keep anything; books were heavy, didn't travel well, and it was really hard to tell what would have any sort of resale value later on. She also probably shouldn't take anything one of their families might miss, but if you had an entire library, it wasn't like you'd miss all that much if some passer-by pocketed a few small items.

"I d-d-don't mind the visit." And she was back to leaning against a wall, looking firmly at no-one and certainly not Eve's tail.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Tyaethe and Renar

You would think finding someone in a place you’ve lived two hundred years is easy, Tyaethe thought, wandering up and down Candaeln to try and find someone she normally had no cause to start a conversation with. Not, for once, carrying a sword, but actually a heavy-looking book. With the glasses, adult figure, and dress, the vampire looked less the paladin and more a bookish noble.

Eventually, eventually, she found her way onto one of the rooftops – one still opening onto ramparts.

“You know, I almost forgot that this roof wasn’t converted into an attic like most of the others. I guess it has the best view over the city,” Tyaethe said, looking out over Aimlenn and as it sloped down towards the riverside, “I was beginning to think you weren’t here after all, but everyone said you hadn’t left Candaeln today.”

Oh, wonderful. And here he’d been hoping for some quiet time to himself. Renar bit back his annoyance and marked the page of the book he’d been reading before he turned to face the less common adult face of Tyaethe, folding his arms.

”It’s not often that you actually call on me for anything.” Which made this somewhat alarming. He could hazard a guess or two as to what this was about. ”This is about the skirmish with the Midnight Hunt, I take it?” He’d been prepared to accept the consequences of defying Tyaethe’s order to allow her to fight alone, but it was still irritating to think that one of either Gertrude or Rolan gave up his name. Oh, who was he kidding? It was almost certainly Gertrude.

“Yes,” she nodded, stepping closer and… still having to crane her head up. He was annoyingly tall, not so huge that it was normal, but still so much taller than herself that it made things awkward for all of them involved. Unfortunately, the ramparts obviously didn’t have seating on them. “I’m curious about your opponent. It was… annoying to fight it in the past when we were constantly on the move, and we were focused more on Rozenalt and not getting overwhelmed. I never got a good chance to look at it, and none of us found the chance to try and defeat it.”

”Oh, that?” Even now, the memory of victory in that duel brought Renar no small amount of satisfaction. ”To be honest, I’m still not certain of all of how he, it, she fought. It was vulnerable to impaired vision, yet could conjure traps and tricks from thin air, it seemed. I’d not managed to get a handle on all of its limitations before I managed to finish the fight.”

“Yes, that’s what I remember. Traps imposed where they couldn’t have been prepared, regardless of how far or fast you lead the Hunt away… not an ideal skill for a direct confrontation, but extremely annoying when you’re trying to avoid the Hunt and being dragged into Faerie,” the vampire nodded, “It seemed to start relying more on fire towards the end? I have to admit I had trouble noticing at that point, I was… distracted.”

And then everything was on fire anyway, so whatever Renar’s duel produced wasn’t the most obvious.

”Indeed.” Renar allowed a displeased expression to cross his face. ”It cost me my favorite trophy. Fortunate that I repaid it in kind, several times over. And before you ask, Ardor did check it all over. The panoply’s all free of any sort of fae corruption or impurity.”

“Corruption and impurity, certainly, but I have a different thought…” she tapped at the book, “What was inside the armour? I don’t think it had a pulse, or any blood at all. The houndmaster did, the falconer did… I’m not so sure about the lady; we never fought her. Obviously Rozenalt did. The trapper was always a blank in that regard.”

”Curiously enough, nothing.” Renar tucked his own closed book aside as he pondered the question. ”By all reckoning, it seemed to have exceeded some sort of threshold for damage and collapsed after my last assault upon it. When I examined the armor, there was nothing within. You believe it to be a spectre of sorts, then?”

“Something fae, still, but… well, it’s not like I could see it,” Tyaethe admitted with a shrug. Terrible eyesight, on fire, and half a clearing away; not an amazing combination, “I’ve asked a few people but they had other things on their mind.”

”Then I suppose we stand at an impasse on this matter. Outside of what I’ve already told you, let’s see…the flames surged out of the armor after I bested it. They coalesced into some sort of person, still comprised of fire. And then it simply dissipated. What brought this on, anyway? Simple curiosity? Or do you believe it left some sort of lingering surprise behind?”

“I don’t think it left a surprise, but… I have an idea about the armour,” Tyaethe started flicking through the book, scanning through the pages until she stopped on a particular spread and turned it around. One side had nearly a dozen sketches of various flame-like creatures in various forms of humanity, and the other…

Well, the text was in Elvish. She wasn’t sure if he could read any of that. “Any of those look similar? There’s a couple of pages of these.”

Well. It was a good thing he’d been educated in Elvish. Though likely not for any sort of reason she’d assume. No, Renar’s father dearest had decided his least favorite would have the same diplomatic education as any other noble, solely because his future spy would at least need to know what was being spoken to report back.

He started perusing the pages, his lessons coming back to him.

”It’s been some time since I’ve had to actually use my language education, but I can manage. Let’s see…”

“Let me know if you can’t read anything; this one’s high elven, and it’s pretty heavy on the magical theory,” she replied. It was hard to tell which dialect someone had been taught, and when magic came into the picture…

High Elvish wasn’t necessarily the issue, but the magical theory did take him a few moments to parse. Renar hadn’t invested too much time into learning of magic outside of how to counter it once it had been confirmed he didn’t have the talent for the art. Still, he wasn’t an idiot, so it wasn’t impossible to start understanding the gist of what was written down. Merely rather difficult.

”Ah, I think I may have hit upon it.” He flipped the tome around to point the entry out to Tyaethe. ”This…’primal flame’, is it? From my understanding, the trapper exhibited few of the traits mentioned here outside of being ablaze. Would it be a safe assumption that the armor was imposing some sort of structure upon it?”

“Fire’s ability to destroy, but not its ability to warm, or light, or cleanse; merely an all-devouring hunger that leaves ash in its wake,” Tyaethe read, eyes tracing the corresponding lines, “The forest fire that clears out the old to make room for new life, the mountain whose destruction leaves new fields for planting. Yes, that could be bound, all its power chained and directed into something a facsimile of its true nature. It would explain the predilection for flames whenever it could use them, it’s all destruction and shadow.”

“But,” she straightened with a smile, “If we want to know – and I think it may be useful if the armour did bind it – then we need to check with an expert.”

She was smiling. Oh, this bode poorly. Renar let an open frown show on his face.

”You’re anticipating enjoying something. I take it this is to be at my expense?” He sighed, but didn’t shift from where he stood.
”Fionn wouldn’t be nearly this troublesome if that’s whom you were thinking of. So not him, then.”

“Who better to take a look at fae-forged bindings than another fairy?” The paladin closed the book with a snap and turned back towards the door, “She might not be a smith, but Fiadh would have a better sense for whatever magic was used than Ardor.”

“I think there’s more in it for you than satisfied curiosity,” she added, suspecting that otherwise Renar would decline… and access to the armour was going to be needed to check this.

”Such as?” Renar quirked an eyebrow, mildly annoyed that Tyaethe was accurately assuming how he would have responded otherwise.

”If I’m to spend time interacting with fae whimsy, I would hope there would be something worth the time and headache.”

“Fae are very big on their obligations,” Tyaethe started – that should be obvious, it was the entire cause and solution for their last problem, “So what do you think it would be worth if the trapper’s involvement in the Wild Hunt wasn’t a voluntary arrangement?”

”Oh, very well.” Renar sighed, his mind following Tyaethe’s words. Damn it. ”Do what you must. The armor is within my quarters. Shall I bring it out, or ought we make our way there?”

“Best to just bring it along while we visit Fiadh.”

---

With armour in tow, there was only one likely place to find Fiadh: in the gardens. Possibly hanging around that one tree, as usual, but most likely in the garden. Hopefully not off who-knew-where or breaking into Fionn’s room, but…

Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to find the little-but-large-for-a-niyar fairy, Fiadh leaning out of the usual tree as soon as the two of them came near. “Oh, hello! Has the captain said I can bring in a new tree yet? I’m still thinking which one would be best…”

“I don’t think I’ve had a good time to ask, you should find her herself,” Tyaethe said, gesturing behind at Renar instead, “We’ve got some armour we need a fairy to take a look at.”

The fairy tilted her head, visibly confused.

Once he was bid to, Renar set the bundle he’d been carrying down, proceeding to unwrap it and lay out the trapper’s - his armor now, piece by piece.

”I seized this from a knight of the Midnight Hunt after besting it in combat. Whatever fae spirit inhabited it abandoned the armor upon its defeat, but Tyaethe believes there may be something lingering within.”

“More… can you tell if it was just shaping, or binding?” Tyaethe asked, getting a long ‘oooooh’ out from the fairy as she jumped down, pointy feet lightly sinking into the earth. Fiadh walked closer, leaning over for an inspection and… stopped.

“There was a fay in here?” That was much more despondent than she’d normally sound.

”There was, yes.” Renar nodded. Wonderful, Fionn’s ‘’’wife’’’ was already in a damned snit. Best tread carefully, or he’d never hear the end of it from the other knight.

”Is there some sort of issue we aren’t aware of regarding this?”

“No, this armour is just…” Fiadh reached a hand out closer to the metal, then snatched it back as if burned, “It’s not nice to have any of us in here. It’s…”

“Not steel?” Tyaethe asked.

“Most of it is! But it was… um, there’s cold iron on it? On the inside?”

“Plated?”

“That’s it! It was plated, and even if you were very strong, it would hurt to be in there. And it feels like it wants to suck me in, even though I’m all wrong for what it wants to do,” Fiadh continued, nodding and moving away further towards the tree.

”So it did serve as a prison for the flame spirit, then.” Renar nodded. Fortunate that nothing about cold iron mattered to humans. Then he went over the last part of what Fiadh said again.

”And what exactly does the armor ‘want to do’? Is this in addition to serving as containment?”

“Bind and reshape and control. It’s a very unpleasant feeling. And it wouldn’t even work,” the niyar raised a finger to her lips, brows creased in concentration, “I’m a fay but I have a body. Even if I was pulled into it, I couldn’t be what it wants me to be, and I don’t have the magic it needs.”

“But a spirit that’s more of an element and less of a person…”

“Oh, they would definitely be drawn in, if they were weak enough. Or weakened. But they would hate it forever.”

”That does explain much about the nature of what it did as opposed to what it was...” Renar mused, rubbing his chin in thought. ”Helpful, thank you. Do you know if that would influence a human who wore the armor as well?”

“Only if someone ripped your soul out of your body and then squeezed it in. It would be a tight fit.”

“Don’t leave Renar with a necromancer, then.”

”As opposed to eternal darkness?” He joked. Well, not fully. The more he thought on it, if he didn’t have a body left by that time…thoughts for decades in the future, at least.

”In any case, this has been of much use, appreciated. Then there’ll be no issue with my wearing mine trophy.” A grin. ”I’d been needing a full, coherent set of plate for formality’s sake, anyhow.”

“Would the bound spirit owe Renar anything?” the white-haired girl wondered, looking between the two, “If it could be summoned?”

“Maaaaaaybe? It should, but would something like that recognise a person very well…” Fiadh’s finger tapped away, “I guess if he brought the armour along? I don’t know what it could do for you, though, it doesn’t seem like armour meant for something very nice.”

Renar shared a look with Tyaethe at that.

”Odds on it feeling rather charitable for my technically freeing it? Or would the sting of defeat override that sentiment?”

“Well, I don’t think anything would ask to be in there, not with cold iron,” was the assertive response, “And it would never be doing what it wanted. Or is meant to, if it thinks that way… I don’t think it would really care about fighting.”

”Then unless you’ve any way to summon that creature to see, I suppose we can table this as a non-threat?”

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t want anything like that near the trees or the rest of the garden!”

“And I wouldn’t want anyone summoning something like that anywhere in the city anyway. But thank you, that’s been very helpful.” Tyaethe added, smile getting somewhat exasperated at Fiadh’s explanation that of course she’d help any companion of Fionn. Mostly for the phrasing, obviously.

Renar simply inclined his head in lieu of thanking Fiadh for the second time in a minute, turning back to Tyaethe.

”If this matter’s been resolved to your satisfaction, I’ll be taking my leave. Unless there’s some other lingering concern to be voiced…?”

“Not at all. And if you ever need that sort of power… well, I think Gertrude probably knows about summoning, she seems the type,” the girl replied, shrugging and giving no further explanation of that. “I wouldn’t recommend picking it up yourself, but it doesn’t really need much magic, it’s easily started externally… but that’s a lot more dangerous.”

Kind of obvious, really. Just because you could provide a lot of the required magic to start it by other means, since it was generally all ritual, didn’t mean you could then adjust anything on the fly. Or augment the defences.

”I’ve no talent for such regardless, but good to know. Perhaps if I’m desperate enough to owe a favor to that girl.” He wasn’t. At least not until they were in far more dire straits. The cost of owing even an apprentice Witch a favor, even one as petty as Gertrude…especially one as petty as Gertrude, was likely more trouble than it was worth. With that in mind, he took his leave of the garden, wrapping up his armor to bring with him.

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

Quille

Hm, now she was being smooshed together against some random boy, which was… awkward. A very-nearly-getting-stabbed kind of awkward, and even without the risk of knives, she was awfully bony. It was not, in fact, a particularly comfortable position to be in. Being ensnared generally wasn't, but at least the lamia's tail was quite soft, and a nice coolness to offset the unpleasant summer heat.

“I just grew this way,” It wasn't the most useful answer, but what else was there to say? The underground wasn't nearly so cramped as he might have thought, and ‘taller than elves usually got’ wasn't the sort of thing that she had ever aimed for in childhood. It just sort of happened.

Hmm, it was nice to know that there were diets like that which existed up here, and the adventurer's guild itself served better fare than the disturbing vegetable soup that had been offered, or gruel, or… yes, she had no money. And the last thing anyone wanted her to do, for some reason, was ply her trade; she knew what animals happened to be owned now, it would be fine. She wasn't being picky for the fun of it.

“Oh, I just… don't know how jobs are picked,” the hunter admitted after a moment's reflection, “I was just asked to become an adventurer because of some confusion around a few cows. It seems like a nice use of my skills while I'm up here.”